J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

The Remarkables ski areas in New Zealand says it expects to open its new six-seater chairlift, Sugar Bowl, this weekend and it's launched a contest to choose who should be the first six people on the lift's first chair to ascend.

After reporting fresh snow and good business during the country's busy holiday season, the Remarkables has now reverted to weekend-only operations for the remainder of the season, due to the overall drop off in business for most of New Zealand's ski areas whilst is international borders are closed to all except those who can quarantine for a fortnight on arrival before hitting the slopes.

That does make each weekend a bigger event than it might otherwise have been as the centre re-opens each time, and this weekend the likelihood of the opening of the new lift (there are some final statutory tests to complete before it is given permission to begin operating), accessing freshly opened terrain, is adding to the anticipation.

The resort is currently seeking nominations for six individuals who deserve a place on the first chair to run on the new lift.

"Your nominee could be someone who has faced challenges this year, done something good in the community or someone who simply loves to shred The Remarkables and would give their right hand to get the first lap on Sugar this year," a resort spokesperson said.

Three of the world's seven largest indoor snow centres have opened in China in just the past year and two of these feature indoor gondola lifts.

These centres have indoor snow areas of over 50,000 square metres - about five times the size of most of the British centres.

The lifts, at Guangdong Sunac Snow World which opened last summer and at Xiangjiang Joy City Snow World are slow moving and were designed mostly for sight-seers rather than skiers and snowboarders, but they do run from the bottom of slopes to the top.

But one of the two centres is reported to have already re-thought the need for an indoor gondola, deciding it was more important to get skiers and boarders to the top of the slopes quickly then serve sightseers.

Guangdong Sunac Snow World has four separate runs of 328m, 230m, 243m and 78 metres in length.

"In the end I realised it was not practical to have a lift designed for sightseers used by skiers and boarders, so we already replaced the gondola cabins with chairs," a manager at Guangdong Sunac Snow World told ski industry consultant Laurent Vanat, the author of the annual International Report on Snow and Mountain Tourism.

The lift that has now been replaced is pictured here.

So now the only indoor ski centre gondola lift is at Xiangjiang Joy City Snow World which is less ski-focused and more of a combined snow and water theme park.

The 2020 ski season in the Andes will finally get underway on Thursday, 23rd July, about a month after the normal season start on the continent.

An early and strict lockdown in Argentina seems to have limited infections and deaths in the country far more than in other leading South American countries, including its badly-hit neighbour Chile, and restrictions are being gradually eased on a region-by-region basis.

The world's most southerly ski area, Cerro Castor down towards Tierra del Fuego in the far south re-opened its base facilities, ice rink and cross-country trails a few weeks ago but not its ski lifts.

However the continent's largest ski area by uplift, Cerro Castor near the ski town of Bariloche, says it will open its ski lifts and runs tomorrow, Tuesday 23rd July, following agreement with local authorities.

The skiing is intended for local skiers with international travel and indeed inter-regional travel within Argentina only allowed for essential reasons.

Slightly ironically the slopes had been expected to open today, but opening was delayed for 24 hours due to heavy snowfalls. Frustratingly for skiers in the region the continent is seeing its best snow in years with bases up to 5 metres deep at some areas in Chile. However the message is stay home and keep safe.

With at least some skiing in South America it means all three southern hemisphere continents with ski lifts will be open with at least some ski areas open, and four of the six southern hemisphere ski nations will be.

Ski areas in New Zealand are operating fairly normally but with no international skiers. In Australia some areas are closed due to virus concerns but most are open, the bigger problem at present limited snow cover.

In Africa. South Africa's Tiffindell ski area is closed due to pandemic lockdown but the continent's other southern hemisphere ski area, Afriski in Lesotho, was the first to open south of the equator for winter 2020 in early June. However its borders with South Africa which surrounds the mountain kingdom remain closed at present.

All interesting, many thanks. I'm getting the impression it's going to be increasingly the case that it will be up to skiers to 'self-regulate' on social distancing, rather than something formally/legally imposed by resorts or governments? The rules/fines seem to be more for mask-wearing than for (not) social-distancing, which is more 'guidance/ideal'. What do you think? Ironically in the US, where there's all the criticism for inadequate action by federal and some state governments, the resorts that re-opened in late spring seemed to be much more hands-on at enforcing social-distancing on lifts. My source re the French lifts public transport comment is a senior person at a Swiss lift co and his exact words are, "France is the only country in the world where ski lifts are considered as public transportation." Like you I thought it was pretty similar everywhere in Europe so assume he means some legal nuance? I'll try to get clarity...

An interesting development at Les 2 Alpes, where summer skiing is currently underway and the resort reports business is brisk and glacier conditions good – in fact in both cases better than 2019.

The resort reports that is key Jandri Express lift up to the summer slopes, which has cabins that can each hold up to 20 people each, is no longer operating with any social-distancing required in cabins.

In other words, it appears, these can operate full as usual, the only requirement is that skiers, boarders and sightseers using the lift all wear face masks.

The development is interesting as it appears this could be the answer next winter, at peaks times at least, as to how ski areas will operate with social-distancing in place when some key lifts up to the ski areas develop queues when operating at capacity at normal times.

At Les 2 Alpes this can be an issue in summer too as so many people want to get up to the glacier, Europe's laregest summer ski area.

Most ski areas that have opened in countries other than New Zealand have social distancing in pace which usually means, unless skiers are already in a group, only two people at each end of a 4 or 6 seater chair and perhaps only 20 people, spaced out, standing in a cable car cabin designed to hold 80 or 100.

So far Les 2 Alpes seems to be the only ski are outside of New Zealand to have allowed a lift to run at its 'old-normal' capacity.

One industry commentator has speculated this may be allowed in France but perhaps not in other ski nations, as ski lifts in the country are officially treated as public transportation like a train or a bus.

However other French areas, mostly in summer operations mode with lower visitor numbers than Les 2 Alpes at present, say they are limiting the number of people in gondola and cable car cabins along 'new-normal' social distancing lines.

Another of the UK's diminishing number of dry ski slopes has announced it is closing for good.

The Bracknell Centre, one of five run by John Nike Leisuresport Limited, closed in March due to the coronavirus lockdown, and it was announced in May that it was under threat of closure due to costs identified as needed for required upgrades, along with ongoing operating costs, being unlikely to be justified by future income.

Bracknell was one of the UK's leading dry ski centres and the first John Nike opened on land the late John Nike had originally acquired in 1969. The main slope was 170 metres long with a 35 metre vertical and there were several smaller slopes too. It was one of very few dry slopes worldwide to have its own double chairlift.

John Nike Leisuresport Bracknell (home of the Bracknell Bees ice hockey team) opened in 1985 for dry slope skiing and in 1987 for ice skating. The adjacent four star, 205-bedroom Coppid Beech Hotel, which has an alpine ski lodge design, opened in 1993.

All 67 staff at the site on John Nike Way have been made redundant and 12,000 people have signed a petition calling for the centre to remain open.

John Nike Leisuresport's four other dry slopes appear to be all re-opening as the pandemic restrictions are eased. Its centre in Chatham has fully reopened, the centre at Swadlincote has re-opened at weekends and its centre at Llandudno which had an all new slope installed at the end of last year to reopen fully this weekend. A reopening date for its centre in Plymouth has not yet been decided.

There have been some big snowfalls in Australia over the past 48 hours, dramatically improving conditions at still-open ski areas.

Perisher and Thredbo in New South Wales had both reported around 90cm (three feet) of snowfall from the current storm, enabling them to open much more terrain.

There had been a similar snowfall two months ago in early May, but that was more than six-weeks before the season was finally able to begin in late June as pandemic restrictions were eased, and most of that first dump was long gone by then.

Prior to the current snowstorms, due to little fresh snowfall in the interim, open Aussie resorts could only offer a run or two to skiers, but now they're able to open terrain up fast.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is causing additional complications. Vail Resorts have shut down the lifts at the two ski areas it operates in the state of Victoria, Falls Creek and Mt Hotham, only days after they finally opened for the season, due to a surge in the pandemic in the state (although not in the areas where the ski areas area).

However the state's other two main ski areas, Mt Buller and Mt Baw Baw, have decided to stay open, and resort businesses in Falls Creek and Hotham say they're staying open too with cross-country and backcountry skiing possible – it's just the lifts that are not running.

The forecast continues to look promising for more snowfall through the rest of July.

In a blow to the ski industry, and to the environment, Eurostar appears to have cancelled the direct Ski train service between England and the French Alps.

"Skiers and snowboarders are gutted by the loss of this hugely popular train. This cancellation is a damaging step backwards by Eurostar. While there are indirect train routes to the French Alps, these can't compensate for the loss of the direct Ski Train," said Daniel Elkan, founder of independent rail-ski guide Snowcarbon.

Since 1997, the train has run twice weekly in the ski season from London and Ashford to the popular Tarentaise region of the French Alps, dropping skiers at Moutiers, Aime la Plagne and Bourg St Maurice stations, a short hop by bus or taxi from 16 major ski resorts, including Méribel, Courchevel, La Plagne, Les Arcs, Tignes and Val d'Isère.

Eurostar has not yet issued a public statement on the cancellation of the service but has contacted d its customers directly saying: "This is a decision we've made with a great deal of sadness. It's been an absolute pleasure to take thousands of travellers direct from St Pancras to the Alps over the years. But in the wake of the coronavirus and a challenging travel market, we've had to make some changes to our services, focusing on our main routes with the highest demand."

With 750 skiers on each train, the Friday overnight and Saturday daytime services carry a total of 24,000 holidaymakers every winter. The daytime train makes the 830km trip from London to Bourg St Maurice in just over eight hours and is frequently faster than flying when compared door to door — with an estimated 80% reduction in CO2 emissions. For the past two seasons, for February half term, the Ski Train sold out within five hours of tickets going on sale.

The service's cancellation seems to be the exact opposite of the widely stated hope that coming out of lockdown would see society rethink operations to try to maintain the reductions of CO2 emissions that were seen in the spring.

A campaign, Save The Ski Train, has already been launched to persuade Eurostar to reinstate the service. Launched by Snowcarbon along with campaign groups Protect Our Winters and Ski Flight Free as well as information service SaveOurSnow, the campaign aims to create a voice for skiers, snowboarders and the ski industry together to try to persuade Eurostar to put the Ski Train back on.

"Eurostar's decision is premature and seemingly made without any consultation of skiers or the ski industry", says Elkan. "There's still time to think again."

Transport is by far the biggest environmental factor of a ski holiday. A 2010 study by the French-sustainability charity Mountain Riders found that 57% of the entire carbon footprint of a typical French ski resort was solely the result of transport of holidaymakers to the resort. Studies by UK-based groups have found that percentage is generally even higher for British skiers and boarders, depending on the method of transport used.

Dominic Winter, Manager of environmental charity Protect Our Winters UK, says: "The future of snow sports and the wider planet depend on us switching rapidly to more sustainable modes of transport. The loss of the Ski Train would be a huge blow to progress on climate change in outdoor sports."

Save The Ski Train campaign:

Petition: change.org/savetheskitrain
Facebook page: facebook.com/SaveTheSkiTrain
Campaign updates: http://www.snowcarbon.co.uk/campaigns/save-the-ski-train
Hashtag: #SaveTheSkiTrain